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Usually when a comic book licensed character comes to video games, it’s usually a big name hero the likes of Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and such. This, however is not the case with Aquaman. To the best of my knowledge, Aquaman comics have a very small, dedicated cult following among comic junkies; Aquaman the game is bound to have even less….

One of the first flaws you’ll come to notice in Aquaman is the very bland textures and boring environments. The game is severely lacking any real character, and looks like a first generation Playstation 2 game, which. By today’s standards: is bad. You would think that a place like the fabled city of Atlantis (Aquaman’s homeland…err, sea) would be a sprawling, beautiful city with inspired landscaping and unique buildings, and while a lot of the buildings do look unusual, they don’t look particularly inspired at all. To be very honest, it doesn’t look like they put much effort into the games visuals. While trying to create an authentic Aquaman experience, TDK decided to do all the games storytelling through comic book-like still panel sequences with word bubbles (a la Max Payne), and sorely enough, they didn’t even give this much effort. The characters are all boring and choppy, as they use in-game models, and the panel layouts themselves are extremely boring and unappealing to the eye. Perhaps if TDK had put some effort into this portion of the game, it would have at least looked like they were trying, but as it stands, the game doesn’t look like much.

Much like Aquaman’s eyesore visuals, the games audio leaves something to be desired. The game is full of bland, repetitive thuds and wacks during battle sequences, and a rather forgettable horn-driven soundtrack. A large (and obvious) factor that really brings the games audio down a lot is the fact that the game features absolutely no voice acting at all. The entire game requires you to read through the aforementioned comic book sequences. The entire soundtrack is very similar, and only seems to play every once in a while, leaving you to listen to the silence of the ocean.

To complete this ménage a trios of laziness and sheer waste of development time, the gameplay is boring and repetitive. One would think that playing as the king and ruler of Atlantis would be a pretty fun experience, but as it stands, it’s just as horribly put together as the rest of the game. As Aquaman, you have 3 attack buttons, two of them punch, one of them kicks. You can use these buttons in different orders to create combos, but when combat looks as bad as this, would you really want to? The game ‘unlocks’ new combos for you as you progress through 21 redundant levels. While the game may span a seemingly long 21 levels, the truth of the matter is that rarely do any of the levels last more than 5 minutes. Each level is a short stint of ‘beat up or blow up’ objectives, most which take place in Atlantis. Wow, fun. The games extremely boring storyline also does little to entice you to continue your underwater journey.

As it stands, it seems TDK knows nothing of either Aquaman, or how to make a good comic licensed game. They would have done well to consult with, and perhaps even collaborate with the minds behind the Aquaman comic to try to make a more authentic (and playable) experience. Sadly, this helping of underwater adventure is enough to drive away even the most hardcore Aquaman fans.